Essex County NJ Archives Biographies.....Lewis James LYONS, 1815 - 1897
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 9, 2008, 8:00 pm

Author: Mary Depue Ogden, Editor  (1917)

LYONS, Lewis James,
Manufacturer, Inventor, Financier.

  The title of "an upright business man" is one of the most honorable that can
be borne. It is a distinction won in a warfare, and against temptations, that
can only exist in a business career. Not many come through a protracted course
unscathed and untainted, and it is an occasion for congratulation that the
business history of Newark, New Jersey, shows a long list of men who have
honored their occupations by pure lives and honest business principles, up to
which they have lived to the best of their ability. It is men like the late
Lewis James Lyons who are intelligent factors in every undertaking and who help
to develop the success of all large cities and the country in general. He
belongs to that distinctively representative class of men who promote public
progress in advancing individual prosperity, and whose private interests never
preclude participation in movements and measures which further the general good.
The ancestors of Mr. Lyons, both paternal and maternal, were patriotic and
intelligent people, one of them being an officer in the Army of Cromwell in
England, and another, the well known hero of Bohemia, Frederick Matthias, was a
defender of the Protestant faith in the Thirty Years' War.

  Lewis James Lyons was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 7, 1815, and died
in his home in Newark, October 31, 1897. He was an infant at the time of the
death of his parents and, while relatives in London expressed a strong desire to
have the child sent to that country, he was taken by maternal relatives to
Boston, and there given an excellent education. This would have included further
instruction in higher institutions of learning, but the mind of Mr. Lyons was
bent in another direction, and it has been well for the world in general that he
was permitted to follow his natural inclinations. He was still a young lad when
he left Boston for New York City, then, at the expiration of two years, went to
Strouds-burg, Pennsylvania, where he lived for a time. The next scenes of his
industry were in succession, Providence, Rhode Island; Paterson, New Jersey;
Brooklyn, New York; gathering general knowledge of men and industries of various
kinds in all of these places. He finally, in 1845, established a residence in
Newark, in which the remainder of his life was spent. He was one of the first to
open boiler works in Newark, and, as he was an inventor, as well as a
manufacturer, the output from his plant was in great demand. It was as an
inventor that Mr. Lyons became acquainted with Seth Boyden, and in response to
his appeals established his factories in Newark. It was Mr. Lyons who made the
first application of steam as a motive power for a fire engine, and world
records show the value of this idea. He was a man of brilliant ideas in many
directions, but the introduction of these frequently met with the greatest
opposition at the first. A case in point is the paying of the workmen in cash
instead of with orders upon the stores, as had been the custom for many years.
Other employers did their utmost to prevent this idea from being carried into
effect, but results proved the wisdom of it, and the very men who were the
strongest opponents later adopted it. As an inventor, the counsel of Mr. Lyons
was often sought by other inventors and industrial workers. His boiler works
were among the most successful industries of the city, and his humane and
conscientious treatment of those in his employ kept him very generally free from
the troubles which are apt to beset those in control of large plants. He was
connected officially, and otherwise, with many enterprises of importance, among
them being: The Merchants' Insurance Company, in which he was a director for
more than a quarter of a century; one of the founders, and a director, in the
North Ward Bank; vice-president in the Citizens' Insurance Company and the
People's Savings Bank, of Newark. In political matters Mr. Lyons was a staunch
Democrat, and had no sympathy for the cause of the Civil War. However, he was
essentially a just and fair-minded man, and would allow no destruction of
property of adherents of either side, if it lay in his power to prevent it. On
one occasion, he prevented a mob from destroying the property of a friend who
was a Republican and a Unionist, and on another, his popularity prevented the
destruction of his own property. He saved one of the local banks from a panic
which had arisen, by supplying it with finances from his private bank, and thus
prevented the closing of its doors. It was one of-his fixed principles never to
purchase or contract for anything for which he could not pay, and this principle
he instilled thoroughly into the minds of his children. At various times he was
offered public office, but he invariably refused, holding that he was best
serving the interests of the community by devoting his time and attention to
furthering industrial prosperity. His fraternal affiliation was with St. John's
Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons. He had been born and reared in the faith of the
Church of England, but upon attaining maturity, joined the Methodist church, of
which he was a member until ten years prior to his death when he became a
Presbyterian. For many years he was one of the leaders in the Union Street
Methodist Episcopal Church, gave freely of his time, means and personal efforts,
and it is largely owing to his instrumentality that the present house of worship
was erected. He was also one of the organizers and founders of St. Paul's
Methodist Episcopal Church of Newark. The cause of education had in him an
ardent supporter, and he was equally generous in maintaining institutions of art
and literature. His simple and unaffected nature delighted in the works of
nature, to which his beautiful home at Belmar, New Jersey, testifies, as does
his winter home in North Carolina.

  Mr. Lyons married, in 1836, Mary A., a daughter of J. Farrel Ward, of New York
City, a descendant of a number of old and honorable families of England, among
whom were the Dudleys, Cunninghams and Peytons. They had a number of children,
the four youngest being: Hannah M., Bertha E. C, Isabella G. and Frederick M.

  A vigilant and attentive observer of men and measures, the opinions of Mr.
Lyons were recognized as sound and his views as broad, therefore carrying weight
with those with whom he discussed public problems. He possessed a genial nature
which recognized and appreciated the good in others and drew around him a large
circle of friends. The success .vhich he gained was of a character not to be
measured by financial prosperity alone, but also by the kindly amenities and
congenial associations which go to satisfy man's nature. No good work done in
the name of charity or religion sought his cooperation in vain, and in his work
of this character he brought to bear the same discrimination and thoroughness
which were so strikingly manifest in his business life.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MEMORIAL CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF MARY DEPUE OGDEN

VOLUME III
MEMORIAL HISTORY COMPANY NEWARK,  NEW JERSEY
1917


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